Ethnic and Racial Studies

ISSN: 0141-9870 (Print) 1466-4356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20

The color bind: talking (and not talking) about race

at work
Eric Fong
To cite this article: Eric Fong (2016) The color bind: talking (and not talking) about race at work,
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39:3, 509-510, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2015.1093152
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1093152

Published online: 16 Oct 2015.

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Download by: [University of California Santa Barbara]

Date: 19 April 2016, At: 02:26

BOOK REVIEWS

509

I advise the book scholars, graduate students and researchers who are interested in
ethnicity, immigration and racism.
Ramazan Erda
Department of International Relations, Eskisehir Osmangazi
University, Eskisehir, Turkey
ramazanerdag@yahoo.com

Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 02:26 19 April 2016

2015 Ramazan Erda

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1095324

The color bind: talking (and not talking) about race at work, by Erica
Gabrielle Foldy and Tamara R. Buckley, New York, NY, Russell Sage
Foundation, 2014, xvi + 194pp., $37.5 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-87154-472-8
Foldy and Buckley wrote a very interesting book that challenges the conventional
color blind practice in handling racial relations in the workplace. They argued that
color blindness can lead to undesirable outcomes in the workplace. Giving up
racial and ethnic identity implies abandoning an important aspect of social identity that may be perceived as a threat by the minority. In addition, by not acknowledging the importance of race, the color blindness principle suggests that race is a
problem. It also frames whites handling things as the norm or standard. Thus,
people are expected to learn and follow the practices of whites and to preserve
whites as the privileged group.
Foldy and Buckley argued that a good racial-cultural practice in the workplace
is that at least a few team members acknowledge color cognizance.
Color cognizance explicitly recognizes the impact of race and culture as well as
the presence of racism. It is marked by our self-awareness of our own racial
and ethnic categorization and identication and their consequences, and is an
acknowledgement of race as a dening element of American society. (20)

The advantage of color cognizance is that it can be a source of strength and pride
in ones racial and ethnic group. Recognizing group diversity leads to higher
group identication and generates greater trust and engagement among
employees.
The authors found support for their arguments in an in-depth study of teams in
a child welfare agency. They also found that not everyone has to agree with the
practice of color cognizance in the workplace. Instead, it is important to have a few
members, ideally with different racial backgrounds, committed to the practice to
form cross-racial partnerships. To foster the practice of color cognizance in the
workplace, it is important that employees feel safe to discuss and argue with
others without any consequence. A safe environment, according to Foldy and
Buckley, should include a sense of both psychological and identity safety.
Second, it is critical that the working environment should foster integration of
diverse ideas and opinion so that groups can move forward in new directions.

Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 02:26 19 April 2016

510

BOOK REVIEWS

The analysis focuses on two levels. The study rst addressed interaction on the
individual level. The discussion carefully differentiates cultural cognizance from
race cognizance. Cultural cognizance focuses on cultural differences, while race
cognizance addresses racial differences. Such distinction is important in order
to understand the practice of race cognizance in the workplace. The discussion
then moved to the team level. Three teams were discussed. The team with
color cognizance used racial and cultural perspectives to help team members
handle issues and challenges effectively.
I found the major argument of the book very interesting. The authors provide a
compelling case based on their observation of a child welfare agency. The authors
surely and successfully forced the reader to rethink the color blind practice in the
workplace. It is important to note that the study focuses on one workplace setting,
a teamwork setting. I hope that the authors or other researchers will explore
whether the arguments also apply to other workplace settings, such as a strictly
hierarchical working environment, or a workplace environment with less power
differentiation.
Eric Fong
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto and Chinese University of Hong Kong
fong@chass.utoronto.ca
2015 Eric Fong
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1093152

Work in transition: cultural capital and highly skilled migrants

passages into the labour market, by Arno-Michael Nohl, Karen
Schittenhelm, Oliver Schmidtke and Anja Wei, Toronto, University of
Toronto Press, 2014, xiii + 344 pp., 27.59 (paperback), ISBN 9781442615687
Work in transition situates itself in the heart of the debate of globalization where
transnational high professionals constitute a key component within a paradox of
developed countries wanting them and a political discourse rejecting them. Nohl
and colleagues take us into a journey through the life course of many highly
skilled migrants navigating their ways where at one level they are welcomed,
and in many cases invited, but at the more practical level are faced with a continuous set of hurdles including a public discourse that actively discourages new
comers. Within such context migrant professionals sometimes accept different
forms of racism through internalizing the public discourse that attributes some
negative behaviours to certain cultures.
In their analysis, Nohl and colleagues reject the economic concept of human
capital where skills are used as the main parameters for success in the labour
market. They highlight how a human capital approach fails to set the stage for
a systematic understanding of the structure of the differential chances of
prot (41). Instead they further develop the concept of cultural capital, rst